Using a new fiscal dataset for small states, this paper analyzes the link between country size, government size, debt, and economic performance. It finds that on average small states have larger governments and higher public debt. Although there are intrinsic factors that explain why governments...

We use a unique data set for 115 countries, from 2000-18, and 5-year non-overlapping averages to explore the impact of technical assitance on revenue mobilization. To the authors' knowledge this is the first such effort to determine a direct relationship between technical assistance and the...

Using a panel of 101 low- and middle-income countries with data covering the period 1980-2012, this paper applies various econometric approaches that deal with endogeneity issues to assess the impact of food price shocks on socio-political instability once fiscal policy and remittances have been...

We introduce a new suite of macroeconomic models that extend and complement the Debt, Investment, and Growth (DIG) model widely used at the IMF since 2012. The new DIG-Labor models feature segmented labor markets, efficiency wages and open unemployment, and an informal non-agricultural sector....

What do we know about the output effects of fiscal policy in low income countries (LICs)? There are very few empirical studies on the subject. This paper fills this gap by estimating the output effects of government spending shocks in LICs. Our analysis-based on the local projection method-finds...

This paper assesses the optimal setting of fiscal spending and foreign exchange rate intervention policies in response to volatile foreign aid, in a small open economy model that incorporates typical features of low-income countries. Within a class of policy rules, it jointly considers the...

Despite the voluminous literature on fiscal policy, very few papers focus on low-income countries (LICs). This paper develops a new-Keynesian small open economy model to show, analytically and through simulations, that some of the prevalent features of LICs-different types of financing including...